ZM's Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley - Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley's Fact of the Day (of the Week!): Paralympics Week!

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

On This FOTD(OTW!): Vaughan dives headfirst into a week of Paralympic Facts!It's Time For...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ZM Podcast Network. Play ZM's Fletch, Vaughan and Hayley. On today's Fact of the Day of the Week, Vaughan plonks himself on the couch for a week of Paralympics fact. It's time for... Fact of the Day, Day, Day, Day, Day. I wondered why that was... It didn't sound right, eh? Turn your microphone on. I actually think it might be Fletch

because before I had to turn my own microphone on. I think so too because I didn't touch that. It was like this. And I had to go like that. Feel free to operate your own microphone at your will. Well, that's actually your job because you've got the buttons there and he's been willy nilly.

Some of your responsibilities are to fellow employers. I don't want that. Write that down. Write that down. We're here to bring the sex and the vibe to the show. You're the button pusher. I'm the vibe hire. And I bring the sex. the vibe to the show. I'm a vibe hire. And I bring the sex. You can't be blamed for anything.

Hands off. Hands off. If the vibe's right, I'm doing my job. I don't know. It feels pretty good. Yeah. Vibe feels pretty good. It's a Paralympics themed fact of the week, this week, day, week, month, year.

No further comment, Your Honour. No further comment, Your Honour. No further comment, Your Honour. So I found this a fascinating story. A fascinating story. The Paralympics. People who compete may have sustained a life-altering injury. Perhaps they were born differently abled. This is a story about Oksana Masters,

who was born in 1989. That's the year I was born. And Taylor Swift. In the Ukraine. Yeah. Three years after the Ukraine. Don't say the. I do apologize.

It's not the Hawks Bay. And it's not the Vaughan Smith. The Ukraine. It is the Vaughan Smith. It's not the New Zealand. That's actually why I prefer to be addressed every right now. Fletch the Vaughan and Hayley. Fletch the Vaughan Smith. The Ukraine. It is the Vaughan Smith. It's not the New Zealand. That's actually why I prefer to be addressed every right now. Fletch the Vaughan and Hayley. Fletch the Vaughan.

The Vaughan, the definitive Vaughan. Could it be a Fletch, the Vaughan and some Hayley? Some Hayley. Yeah. She was born in Ukraine in 1989, three years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Oh, yeah. Well, that caused a lot of birth defects, didn't it?

She was born with severe physical defects. Okay. Because of the exposure to the radiation, including six toes, webbed fingers, no thumbs, one leg 15 centimetres shorter than the other, missing some organs. Oh, God. What?

As well as... Wait, I've been to Chernobyl. Is this going to start... Am I going to grow a semester? Check your organs. Do a count on your organs. I'm going to start growing an extra couple of toes. Yeah, maybe.

No, she was born there. She was in utero. Her mother was in the zone. Was in the zone. Right. And she was conceived and it affected the fetus, she was born. These were some of her birth defects. Right.

You think, what a disadvantaged start to life. She won a gold medal at the Paralympics for cross-country skiing. Far out. What have you done? I've won lots of gold medals. You were born at the same. Not Olympics. Yeah.

Yeah, I know, but not Neno Chernobyl. Taylor Swift, sell out tours. This woman, all these disadvantages, gold medal at the Paralympics. Hayley Sproul. TBC. Hayley Sproul. TBC. Win.

My life is still just developing. I'm still extremely young. I'm still on this side of 30. Are you going to win anything? Like you were nominated. I've won a lot. Okay. I've won a lot.

Marching doesn't count, though. Marching isn't a sport. Why not? What have you done? Okay, calm down. Jeez. Wow. Really the nerve there.

Calm down, sweetheart. Give us a smile. Oh, God, enough of that. Enough of that. Thanks. So she won. Two of the five medals she won in 2018 were gold and went on to compete at the Paralympics in Tokyo as well,

even though they happened after. Remember? Because of the pandemic. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pandemic. So she was raised in the US and that's who she competes for because she was adopted by a woman from the US.

This was a big situation in the early 90s. Yeah, a lot of babies were adopted from that area to the US. So yeah, she said she was missing weight-bearing bones in her legs. Her knees were described as floating. They weren't really supported by anything. Hands are webbed, five fingers, no thumbs, don't have a right bicep. I'm missing some organs. I have one kidney.

I don't have any enamel on my teeth. Like all of it, can you imagine? All of this is doubt to her. Yeah. So how did- And she was this, she said the woman that raised her was the number one inspiration in her life to not let these things hold her back.

So what was it, cross-country skiing? Yes. So did they, how did she adapt the skis? I don't, I don't know. I don't know the adaptions or even what, because you know the different, I always think they were the classes, the classes, the classes of the Paralympics.

Like F20 and C something or other all stands for the different abilities. Yeah, the different stuff. Far out. I'll tell you what, the Olympics is cool, you watch it, but the Paralympics is inspiring. I know. No end.

It does make you think, what have I done? Yeah. Sometimes I'll get to the gym and I'll just be like, not today. Not today. No reason why. And you've got all your arms and legs. And I've got everything.

I've got a slight tinge in the knee. Too much for me to overcome, actually, to get stronger. That's enough for me to not do it today. Better go home. Yeah, better go home, actually. You'll just lay down and keel over. Yeah, so today's fact of the day is it's time to drop the excuses because a woman born with birth defects caused by Chernobyl,

including six toes, webbed fingers, no thumbs, one leg shorter than the other, missing some organs, and won a gold medal at the Paralympics for cross-country skiing. It's going to be Paralympic facts all this week as the Paralympics kick off. We've got two silvers and a bronze.

Awesome. I'm all up already. Yeah, yeah. Cycling, athletics, one of our very talented athletes set a record at the weekend too. Okay. Oh, yeah. Cycling, athletics, something like that. One of our very talented athletes set a record at the weekend too. It's a hell of a good time at the Paralympics. But the Paralympics is

I thought for the first day of the Paralympics facts this week. We're going to look at the history of the Paralympics and how it started. Well, Dr. Ludwig Gutmann was a Jewish doctor that escaped Germany just before World War II.

And at the behest of the British government, he opened a spinal injury centre at a hospital called the Stoke Maidville Hospital for rehab of World War II veterans that were coming back with injuries. World War I, a lot of injuries sustained, dead. Yeah. But medical advances meant that a lot more people

were surviving war and having life-changing injuries, amputations, all manner of things, spinal injuries, everything. So in 1944, he set up a spinal injury centre. And at the time, he said when it got to a certain part, these men, the best rehab for them was sports. Light versions of the sports. But they didn't want to go home and do the same.

You know what it's like when you go to the physio and they're like, when did you go home and do this stretch for 15 minutes a day? This has made my life lately. You do it until it stops hurting. And then you're like, I will never do that again. And then the injury comes back because you didn't do it. And this guy found out that Ludwig Gutmann found out that if you gave men sports

that they had played previously or were familiar with, they would do them more regularly for their rehab. But adapted versions. Yeah, adapted versions. So July 1948, the opening ceremony of the London 1948 Olympic Games, Gutmann, the doctor, organized the first competition for wheelchair athletes, not as part of the Olympics, but just to coincide with the opening of the Olympics.

16 injured servicemen and women took part in archery from wheelchairs. Okay. Yeah. So then it wasn't until 1960 that the first official Paralympic Games took place. Before that they were known as the Stoke-Madeville Games, named after the hospital where the rehab unit was set up. Yeah. And the games mostly happened on the grounds of the hospital. Things

like archery, etc. But in 1960 the first Paralympic Games took place. 400 athletes from 23 countries and it all was off the back of how many countries had servicemen and women after World War II with life-altering injuries. Oh, wow.

That meant that they couldn't compete on an equal playing field with those able-bodied athletes, but wanted to, and so continued to partake in the sports. And that's how the Paralympics started up. Oh, my God. And in 1976, the first Winter Paralympics Games took place in Sweden. Great start. I always say winter takes a little bit longer to get on board with sorts of things,

but it did happen. Very bloody cold. Very bloody cold. So today's fact of the day is the Paralympics started because a doctor was rehabbing so many people with injuries after World War II. We're talking about the Paralympics all week this week, and I watched some of the swimming last night, and boy, was I inspired not to go near a pool because those people are so quick,

and I've got all my limbs, and I'm able-bodied, and I would embarrass myself. Yeah. That's pretty inspiring, eh? It's nuts. It is. Everything you watch at the Paralympics, so inspiring. Amazing.

Like I said yesterday, the Olympics, you're like, wow, that's amazing. At the Paralympics, you're like, wow, that's amazing. And awfully inspiring and making me feel terrible. Yeah. But boy, some athletes there. So we're concentrating on the Paralympics all week this week. Producer Shannon sent me this yesterday saying, what about a fact of the day about people that have competed

at both the Olympics and the Paralympics? Ooh, okay. And there are not that many examples of it. Yeah. So I would focus on two. Okay. One, a New Zealander. Neroli Fairhall was born in 1944

on Christchurch. She took up archery following a motorcycle accident that paralysed her from the waist down. Ending her previous athletics career. She'd always been out there for the track and field. She won gold at the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane for

archery in 1982. She competed at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984 and finished 35th, but also competed at the Summer Paralympics in 1972, 1980, 1988, in the year 2000. Okay. For archery. So that's a New Zealander doing it well.

Yeah. She was, I want to get this right, paraplegic. Okay. When she competed at the Olympics. Oh, I was going to ask, but she was so good.

She, as a paraplegic, competed at the Olympics. Okay. And also went to the Paralympics. Yep. Of the same year. Because I guess archery is,

you're either standing or sitting, right? Like it doesn't matter. Yeah. Now the first person to have won, and I think one of the only people, there's a couple of people who have won medals at both the Olympics and the Paralympics.

The other examples are cyclists. You know when the blind cycling, the vision impaired cycling, they need a guide. So it's like a tandem bike. And I believe the guide goes at the front and steers and the other person. Are they allowed to pedal though?

Yes, they are. But both win medals. Right. So the other ones that have won Olympic medals and Paralympic medals are people with sight who are guides for Paralympic athletes. Okay. But the one who has won both medals at the Olympics

and the Paralympics was a Hungarian fencer called Pell Sikeres. He won a bronze medal in 1988 at the Summer Olympics in Seoul. And in 1991, he was in a bus accident. I've seen a picture of the bus accident. And it wasn't just like a nose to tail with the... It was an awful transport. No, it was a burst. Oh, jeez. The carcass of the bus

was just bursting into flames and a massive collision with a truck he had in that accident he ended up in a wheelchair

and so he took up wheelchair fencing he won gold at the 1992 Summer Paralympics in Barcelona two gold at Atlanta in 1996

a bronze in 2000 2004 and 2008 as well as the bronze medal that he won for fencing in 1988. Wow. That's before his bus accident in 1991. And he's 59 years old. Huh.

Yeah. Amazing. I wouldn't expect an older having competed that well. Yeah. So that's today's fact of the day is a New Zealand archer has competed at both the Paralympics and the Olympics and a Hungarian fencer has won medals at both. Today's fact of the day,

well, this week's fact of the day, is the Paralympics, which is an amazing event and I recommend watching a bit of it on TV One's doing, after Seven Sharp they do kind of the evening's

Paralympic recap. Also the Instagram account's still popping the Olympics and Paralympics account. Yeah, there's so much good content in the Paralympics.

Amazing people. But I wanted to talk today about cheating at the Paralympics. As there has been some cheating at the Paralympics. I'll go through a few of them but I want to finish on the big one.

At Tokyo 2020 Paralympics game, discus thrower Vinod Kumar was banned for two years after he was found to have intentionally misrepresented his disabilities. Oh, okay. What, like hiding an arm or something? He just had it tucked under his jumper. Like when you were a kid and you were like, I can see that.

I don't have an arm. But you're like, I can see it. Yeah, no, he was about his intellectual disabilities and such. Right.

And that's quite a common thing. Because they class them, eh, based on disabilities. Yes. So you're trying to get a little head start.

And they're constantly reclassifying because if you watch any of the Paralymp you're trying to get a little head start. And they're constantly reclassifying, because if you watch any of the Paralympics, there'll be a little code. And that stands for something. C18 or something. Yeah, often a letter and some numbers, and they're reclassifying them.

And a couple of times, controversially, right before the Paralympics starts, they can reclassify it right up to there. Well, that's got to be annoying if you've been training in that class. Yeah. Well, exactly, yeah. And then you popped into a different class.

But I think the most interesting Paralympic scandal that I could find, there's a bit of, as much doping. Yep. There's doping in the Paralympics. Thank God, yeah. Yeah, and they test it for everything. Get a bit more speed and strength. However, it was the Paralympics in Sydney

that already had numerous positive drug tests, but Spain was stripped of their gold medal in basketball after it turns out their team had been exposed by an undercover journalist who had infiltrated and become part of their team, claiming to have an intellectual disability in an effort to oust the fact he believed that other people on the team were also lying

about their intellectual disabilities. Oh my God. So this guy makes the team, Carlos Arribagorda. We had to be good at basketball. Do you know what I mean? As a journalist, he must have already had basketball skills. He revealed to Spanish Business Magazine that most of his colleagues in the team had not undergone medical tests to ensure they had a disability

and most of them were lying about the disabilities they had listed. So the IPC investigated the claims and found that the required mental test, which showed that the competitors have an IQ of no more than 75, was not ever conducted by the Spanish Paralympic Committee. And he also alleged that Spanish participants in table tennis, track and field, and swimming events were not disabled. Five medals were won fraudulently and had to be returned.

Naughty Spain. Naughty, naughty Spain. But paella. I know, but delicious paella Well let's not tarnish all of Spain with this pie Yeah just the paella Just the naughty ones Some naughty Spanish people running through

So 10 of the 12 competitors in the winning team were not disabled Wow 10 out of 12 including the journalist who was one of them Naughty Spain Naught of them Naughty Spain Naughty Spain Naughty Spain So today's Fact of the day

Is there's cheating At the Paralympics as well And perhaps No larger than At the 2000 Summer Paralympics In Sydney When the Spanish

Basketball team Who won gold Naughty Naughty Very few of them Even had anything That would qualify them For the Paralympics

Today's Fact of the day Is that the Paralympics It's a Paralympics themed Fact of the day week The Paralympics medals Are a little bit different To the Olympics medals Are they?

Yes How? Well I'll go back to 2012 Okay And I'll work my way up To current day In fact I'm going to go 2012 2020 2024 And back to 2012. Okay. And I'll work my way up to current day. In fact, I'm going to go 2012, 2020,

2014, back to 2016 because I think 2016 is the best. Okay. Different medal. It's a wayward track. I'll say it's all over the show. I'm going to call it a shitstorm. Sure. Okay, you can call it that. London's Paralympics medals were more or less

the same except it had braille writing on it. Oh yeah. London's Paralympics medals were more or less the same, except it had Braille writing on it. Oh, yeah. The reverse featured, the rim around it read London 2012 Paralympic Games, and then that was written in English and then the dots afterwards that make up Braille. It said Heart of Victory and that was the difference. It had Braille on it. The standard Olympic medals didn't have Braille on it. Can I ask a stupid question? Is Braille one language? No, there's Spanish Braille, German Braille.

Okay, okay, okay. No! No, that's what I was like, is there English Braille? No, there's just one Braille. Mandarin Braille. Braille was developed by and named after Louis Braille. Yes. Braille is not a universal language, as some people assume,

although many languages do use the same alphabet. There are many standard systems for Braille. Like sign language. For different languages and different purposes, such as encoding musical math. There's American Sign Language, New Zealand Sign Language. So there is different Brailles. Interesting.

So 2012 they had Braille. Apology accepted, Fletch. I didn't apologise. Well, it's accepted anyway. I'm not letting you take my apology. I have received it. But he wasn't wrong. He was, because you said no. It's not in all different languages.

And it is. I thought he said it is in all different languages. No. What did you say? I said there's a Spanish braille, there's German Braille. Yeah, he was saying there are different languages. No, and then he laughed because he was making a joke. And I accept his apology

so it's fine, we can move on. Okay, I'm confused. So 2020 in Tokyo, they again had Braille on them, the Paralympics medals. And on the side, the gold medal

had one indentation, the silver medal had two indentations, and the bronze medal had three indentation, the silver medal had two indentations, and the bronze medal had three indentations. Oh, okay. So that was pretty cool. What did that signify? No, I'm kidding.

I got it. I got it on the first go. I'm not as dumb as Fletch who thought that braille was just a global language. He was a bit dumb, eh? Now, the Paralympic medals this year for 2024, much like the Olympics medals, contained an original piece of iron from the Eiffel Tower. Yeah.

And had a graphic representation of the Eiffel Tower viewed from below. It's my favourite view of the Eiffel Tower. Get up underneath. It looks bigger. An upskirt of the Eiffel Tower. You pervert. You're such a pest. It looks bigger from a lower angle.

This is why Vaughan has a restraining order of 100 metres around the Eiffel Tower. Around the Eiffel Tower. Because he's upskirting. Any big buildings. Yeah. Sky Tower. With a large base. You know, I walk under the Sky Tower and I'm always like...

Poor. Wow. So there is Braille on this one and different engravings on the different medals. Yeah. To indicate what they are. And that honours, by the way, Louis Braille, who was the inventor of Braille, who was French. Many different versions to Braille. Yeah.

Bonjourno. Yeah, bonjourno. Yeah, I know. I think the coolest Paralympic medals were those of the 2016 Olympics. Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro. My favourite Olympics. My favourite form of Braille as well. It was your favourite Olympics?

Actually, it probably was. I loved Rio. I've loved this year, though. This year's been really good. Yeah. But Rio de Janeiro had Braille, but each medal also rattled. The rattle of the gold medal sounded different to the rattle of the silver medal, which sounded different to the rattle of the bronze medal.

What's inside it? Different things. Rice. Rice. Or whatever they put in Maracas. See, I found a video here. Dried fava beans. Of a I don't know, I'm just going to work. Yeah, no, nothing else is playing. So you might have turned that on

or something. Yeah. You just tapped it on and off. You just tapped it on and off. No checking. Come with our own sound. A small. You've got an ad. Do you not have YouTube premium? No, it's not an ad. It's a news story. Oh my god. Oh my god. It's a news story. Shush my God. Paper premium. Oh, my God. It's a news story.

Shush. So come with their own sound. Gold medal. A small rattle inside gives off a metallic sound when they're shaken. Silver medal. Visually impaired athletes

tell the difference between each award. Bronze medal. The gold medal gives off the loudest noise. Sounds like a tambourine. Oh, that's another ad. It's not an ad.

It's a news story. It's a news story. It's a news story where they shook the ones. But that's the coolest because it had braille on it. Yeah. And it had a rattle so you could shake it and hear the difference between what medal you were holding. So if you went and you did multiple events. You had multiple medals.

You got a silver and a gold. And you had them all on. You could be like, oh, which one's my which? Which one's the bronze? Which one's the silver? You could do it by shaking it. If you didn't speak German Braille, for example. Is this the end of Paralympics week?

It is the end of Paralympics week. I've enjoyed it thoroughly. Yeah. Certainly made up for calendar week. Oh, God. Why do we keep bringing that up? A cult classic. It wasn't a huge performer at the box office,

but it's really since it was released on DVD and Blu-ray. I don't know what that is. Huge cult following. No one enjoyed it. Calendar week. So today's fact of the day is the Paralympic medals are just a little bit different. Fact of the day, day, day, day, day. If you liked today's podcast, tell your friends you could send them the link.

And if you don't have any friends, just pretend you did. Yeah, great. And rate and review. And maybe get out there and try to make some friends. ZM's Fletch, Vaughan and Hayley. Great. And rate and review. And maybe get out there and try to make some friends.